New York City Blog Feb. 23 – March 1

The 87th Academy Awards were very pretty and very boring. Shouldn’t the MC be a comedian? Remember Steve Martin making that remark about the teamsters helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his car, Billy Crystal ad-libbing about the elderly man who kept talking and no one could hear him, Ellen DeGeneres’s vacuum cleaner and selfie? This year we got Neil Patrick Harris in his underpants with a scared expression – they told me you’d laugh – on his face. There’s an English music hall ditty, “Always the bridesmaid never the bride…” that I thought of as I watched handsome and hopeful Bradley Cooper sitting in the first row and ready to race to the stage. The same thing happened last year.

 

These are for Bradley Cooper.
These are for Bradley Cooper.

If you like crowded rooms that reek of meat and money, the venerable and lively Keen’s Steak House is the place for you. I don’t know if President Taft, the fattest president, dined there but many of his contemporaries did. In 1905 Lillie Langtry won the right to eat at Keens. She promptly devoured a mutton chop and is now immortalized by a nude painting that hangs over the bar.

The Lilly Lantry Bar at Keens
The Lilly Lantry Bar at Keens